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This is Mayiwalku’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. 

Mayiwalku’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. Mayiwalku was born at Yirnangarri. She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around the Country extending across the Punmu, Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33) and Karlamilyi (Rudall River) regions. Following the death of both their parents, Mayiwalku and her sisters travelled alone between Punmu and Kunawarritji, occasionally meeting with other family groups. They continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Mayiwalku’s ngurra, such as the dominant permanent red tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. These include Januwa, Jilankujarra, Karlajarntu, Kartungu, Kularti, Kumpupajanu, Kunalimpi, Kunarra, Marnakarti, Pangkapirni, Wilunganinya, Wurur-wururna, Yilyara, and Yirrajarra Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. 

The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country sustained Martu as they travelled across their Country, hunting and gathering, visiting family, and fulfilling ceremonial obligations. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.

Categories: Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Name: May Mayiwalku (May Wokka) Chapman

Language: Manyjilyjarra

Community: Warralong

Biography:

Mayiwalku May Chapman is the eldest sister of fellow Martumili Artists Nancy Nyanjilpayi (Ngarnjapayi) Chapman, Mulyatingki Marney and Marjorie Yates (dec.). Her mother was Warnman and her father was Manyjilyjarra. Mayiwalku was born to the East, in Yirnangarri, “where the two footprints lie”. Her family’s Country extends across the Punmu, Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33) and Karlamilyi (Rudall River) regions. Following the death of both their parents, Mayiwalku and her sisters travelled alone between Punmu and Kunawarritji, occasionally meeting with other family groups. They later walked south into Karlamilyi, where they first saw a plane flying overhead. Petrified, they hid under spinifex grass until the plane had passed.

Following the construction of the Canning Stock Route in 1910, the family increasingly came into contact with Europeans and Martu working as cattle drovers along the route. Gradually men from Mayiwalku’s family began to work seasonally at stations around Jigalong, but as a family group they remained living in the desert long after most Martu had moved to Jigalong Mission. Finally, in 1966, following a prolonged and severe drought, Mayiwalku and her sisters made the decision to walk to Balfour Downs, where they were collected by Jigalong Mission staff.

Mayiwalku lived for many years at Jigalong Mission before eventually relocating with her five children to Warralong, a community south east of Port Hedland. She continues to live in Warralong today with her daughter and equally renowned artist, Doreen Chapman. Mayiwalku was one of Martumili’s pioneering artists, and is highly regarded for her technically sophisticated works. Her paintings depict her ngurra (home Country, camp); the Country she walked as a young woman, its animals, plants, waterholes and associated Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. Mayiwalku’s work has been exhibited widely across Australia and internationally, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia.

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